Preet Bharara fixes HSBC; jail for Gupta, Martoma

Credit: blogs.marketwatch.com

Manhattan prosecutor Preet Bharara shows his true colors as a servant of the money-power.

In the case of mega British bank  HSBC, Bharara is willing to settle for peanuts civil charges over HSBC’s defrauding of the US government to the tune of  millions of dollars:

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Tuesday announced a $10 million settlement with the British bank HSBC, accusing it of fraud over the way it submitted fees to the government when foreclosing on homeowners.

HSBC, prosecutors said, lacked the internal controls to review fees it incurred in the process of foreclosing — expenses that the bank ultimately passed on to the government for reimbursement. The bank, which admitted committing the misconduct as part of the civil settlement, cost the government millions of dollars in losses.

Civil actions like these serve as an important tool that our office can and will continue to use in holding financial institutions responsible for misconduct,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement.

In a separate statement, a spokesman for the bank said, “We are pleased to have settled this matter,” additng that the bank had “taken steps to enhance oversight” of the billing process.”

HSBC  Holdings, the company that owns the bank, has a market capitalization of $192.57 billions. That is billion with a ‘b.’

The fine on HSBC was ten million.

There are a thousand millions to a billion.

In 2012, the bank settled criminal charges over money-laundering for $1.92 billion.

HSBC was the bank of choice for the Mexican drug cartels.

In Forbes’ global 2000 list of the world’s largest companies, HSBC came in at 14.

It ranked #3 among all companies in the world in  total assets.

HSBC’s billion-dollar-plus fine was the third it had earned in a decade, says a Reuters piece from 2012, which also lists the fines paid by HSBC’s mega-bank colleagues:

Standard Charter PLC:  $327 million (violating sanctions)

ING, NV:  $619 million (violating sanctions against Cuba and Iran)

Meanwhile, for not making any money on an alleged insider tip about consummate insider Warren Buffet’s insider-deal involving insider-bank Goldman Sachs (to which at least half-a-dozen insiders were privy and which any one of them could have leaked);

for not costing the government a dime,

Rajat Gupta became the highest-placed manager ever to be convicted criminally and the first to ever have been subjected to federal wire-tapping…and pre-textually, at that.

Wire-tapping is usually reserved for the mafia.

In this case, the blue-chip manager got the wire, the strip-down and jail…and the mafia (SAC Capital) got off with fines.

Gupta is now starting two years in jail, having got a “break” because of his philanthropic work.

The Occupy Wall Street left  would have liked him to do ten years.

Matthew Martoma, a significantly smaller fry than Gupta, is now facing eight years in prison, as  Bharara throws the book at him.

Martoma elicited information about drug-trials from a couple of doctors before the results were public and earned millions in bonuses.

It isn’t clear how Martoma’s conduct was any more corrupt than that of the big banks….and that of many fraudulent lenders and borrowers all through the financial crisis, not to mention corrupt bureaucrats, courts, lawyers, doctors, journalists and general public.

Martoma’s boss, the alleged mafia-man and Sith Lord of Wall Street, Steven Cohen, has not been touched criminally.

Actually, no manager or CEO of any of the largest banks has faced any criminal proceeding.

Some Sheriff of Wall Street, this Preet  Bharara.

Interestingly, the author of the piece I just linked,  Judge Jed Rakoff, is as much an enabler of corruption as any figure in the court-system.

Which makes the piece, while true, the usual hypocritical tosh, wherein the very folks who scammed us get to change their jaddis, put on new togs and and bloviate about the integrity of the markets.

(For non-desis, jaddi = underwear)

Just remember it was the same Jed Rakoff  who handled the Madoff fraud and reportedly made it harder for the victims to collect.

And it was again Jed Rakoff who prevented crucial evidence from being heard in the Gupta case.

Evidence that would have helped the defense and thwarted Bharara.

Now, between Bharara and Rakoff, the fix is in.